Pallet Racking – Discover the Many Options

Pallet racking is a material handling storage system designed to store palletized materials in horizontal rows with multiple levels. There are a variety of different pallet rack options available. Here is a brief overview of some that you will encounter:

Single deep selective pallet racks are the most traditional type of pallet racks. They are low density, allowing for access to every pallet position. This creates very flexible loading and placement.

Cantilever racks use metal arms to hold bulk, heavy, irregular, long and odd-shaped items and do not utilize pallets. Fairly low density, but highly efficient for specific types products such as lumber, furniture, pipe, and more.

Double deep racks include a second row of pallets behind the first. This boosts your storage density, however limits access to some of your pallets. Unless you are employing push-back racks, double deep racks require an extended reach forklift.

Pallet flow racks (or gravity flow racks) provide high-density storage for FIFO (first in, first out) systems. Pallets are appended to one end of a deep bay onto rows of wheels or full rollers. Each additional pallet pushes the rest forward, until pallets are removed from the other end. The pallet flow system often has complex motion and braking systems to control the speed of the moving pallet.

Drive-through racks and drive-in racks are designed to take full advantage your forklifts: each bay is available directly by a forklift and pallets can be picked from several heights. Drive-in racks have one entrance, while drive-through racks have two. This system uses the LIFO (last in, first out) storage method.